During E3 2018, the company announced the acquisition of The Initiative, Playground Games, Ninja Theory, Undead Labs, and Compulsion Games.5 game studiosLater, at the X018 event held earlier in Mexico, Microsoft announced that it would acquire two game studios, Obsidian Entertainment and inXile Entertainment, to strengthen its Xbox game content lineup.
Obsidian Entertainment, formed by members of Interplay's Black Isle Studios following its dissolution in 2003, primarily creates PC and console gaming content. Its past works include the Neverwinter Nights 2 series, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II, Fallout: New Vegas, South Park: The Stick of Truth, Pillars of Eternity, Tyrant, and other titles, covering Windows, Linux, macOS, Xbox, and PlayStation platforms.
inXile Entertainment, founded by Interplay co-founder Brian Fargo in late 2002, has produced titles such as The Bard's Tale IV and Wasteland 2, and even took over the production of the Baldur's Gate series originally published by Interplay.
By taking over many studio teams that are passionate about games among European and American players, Microsoft obviously hopes to attract more players to support Xbox. It also means that Microsoft will further compete with Sony in content on the Xbox One platform, rather than just emphasizing hardware performance.
